


How Can You Fix a Broken Heart?

by TheKnightOfHeart



Series: Fixing a Broken Heart [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam (Voltron) Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Keith/Lance (Voltron), Krolia (Voltron) is a Good Parent, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 07, Protective Krolia (Voltron), Quantum Abyss Future Visions, Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08 Fix-It, i'm sorry my boys :(, kind of i guess?? takes place between s7 and s8, probably won't get into s8 tbh cause i never actually watched it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 22:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnightOfHeart/pseuds/TheKnightOfHeart
Summary: “Keith,” Lance says, his voice firm and a bit impatient. “Stop ignoring me.”“I’m not ignoring you,” Keith grits out.Lance laughs, but the sound is all wrong. It sounds like a perversion of his usual laugh, bitter and quiet where it would usually be boisterous and infectious. “Really?” he asks sarcastically. “Then whatareyou doing? Because you’re certainly nottalkingto me. I know a lot of time passed on your end of things since we last saw each other, but are you seriously going to pretend that we barely know each other?”“What do youwantme to do?” Keith growls. “Pretend nothinghaschanged? Pretend that we can be all buddy-buddy again?”“Maybe!” Lance exclaims, and Keith can see one of his long arms being flung out in exasperation.In any other situation, maybe that would’ve been funny or perhaps endearing. All this time, and Lance is still fundamentally Lance. And maybe that’s the main issue here. Lance is still Lance, and Keith is still Keith, and that means that as long as Keith’s heart continues beating for the Cuban, they can’t go back to the way things were. But Keith can’t admit this to Lance, so he bites his tongue.





	How Can You Fix a Broken Heart?

Keith wakes up last, and as soon as he’s able to, he slips away to the roof.

_Technically_, he’s not allowed to be here, but he’s spent the last three days in his hospital room with nothing to do and only his mother, Kolivan, and Kosmo to talk to. He needs the fresh air and solitude.

Kosmo is able to take him there in a few small jumps, and he expects the alarm won’t give him much trouble. However, to his surprise, the alarm has already been disabled, and the door is unlocked. When he hesitantly opens it and peers outside, he finds a familiar figure already sitting near the edge of the roof, head tilted back to stare up at the mostly-full moon and the smattering of stars bright enough to pierce through the haze of artificial lights below them.

The figure doesn’t acknowledge Keith or Kosmo’s existence until the space wolf is trotting over to him and headbutting his arm until he gets ear scratches. Kosmo settles down next to him with a content sigh and rests his large head in the boy’s crossed legs. Keith, after hesitating for a few seconds, sits a respectful distance away on the boy’s other side.

He can’t bring himself to look at the boy. They sit in silence for a long, _long_ time, until eventually, Lance can’t take it anymore.

“So you’re finally up and about,” he mumbles. Keith can hear the quiet sounds of his fingers moving through Kosmo’s fur over the sound of the cold desert wind. He shivers and fights the urge to cross his arms and rub them.

“Yep,” Keith replies, short and to the point. He wants to leave, but for some reason, he can’t.

Lance shifts, and Keith just barely keeps himself from glancing over to see what he’s doing. He can’t deal with this right now, not when he’s on the verge of going insane as it is.

Something warm and kind of heavy is suddenly draped across Keith’s shoulders, and he jumps. Looking down, he finds a familiar jacket. He knows that if he lowers his face even just a few inches and sniffs, he’ll be able to smell Lance’s favorite body wash, something flowery and uniquely his. He suddenly feels overheated and dizzy, and it has nothing to do with the thick jacket or concussion.

“You… didn’t need to give this to me,” he manages to say without stammering much.

Lance snorts. “Uh, yeah, I kinda _did_. I can see you trying not to shiver, dude. I’ve got Kosmo, so I’ll be fine.”

Keith glances over, finally, and see’s Kosmo half-lying in Lance’s lap. Long, brown fingers stained with moonlight are slowly raking through his fur. Like Keith, Lance is wearing the hospital’s clothes, but he somehow manages to make them look better anyways. Keith swallows thickly and looks away before he does something foolish, like look up and get caught up in memorizing Lance’s face again.

Keith closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. He can feel Lance’s eyes on him, carefully tracing his features and leaving a burning wake behind them.

“You look good in my jacket,” Lance says after a second, and Keith almost loses it right then and there. How could Lance say something like that so calmly? Keith feels ready to combust.

“T-thanks,” Keith says and immediately wants to die. He’s given himself away now, hasn’t he? Lance is good with people. He could see through all of Keith’s flimsy excuses once, and this time will be no different, Keith is sure.

But Lance’s accusation never comes. His gaze leaves Keith’s face, and Keith feels steady enough after a few seconds to open his eyes again and look out at the Garrison campus below them and, past that, the empty desert. He wants to look up at the sky, maybe trace out some familiar constellations, but he doesn’t think he can without feeling helpless and small. He needs to ground himself tonight.

Time passes. Keith isn’t sure how much, but Lance stays quiet. Keith stays quiet too. He’s not sure what to say. So much has changed. Where once he might’ve been talking easily with the boy next to him, he feels the distance between them like an insurmountable wall. Most of it is his fault, he knows, but he doesn’t know what to do to fix it. Part of him doesn’t really _want_ to because he knows what’ll happen in the end: he’ll offer his heart to this beautiful boy made out of stardust and sunshine, and he’ll be too caught up in someone else’s orbit to give Keith the time of day.

Keith scowls at a distant star, low on the horizon, and thinks he must be a masochist. Why else would he tease himself with intimacy, if only to revel in the pain of keeping Lance at an arm’s length?

“What happened to us?” Lance asks a few seconds later, like he’s privy to Keith’s thoughts. Again, Keith can feel his gaze on Keith’s face, more insistent this time, but he keeps glaring at the star like he’ll be able to intimidate it into making everything less terrible.

“Keith,” Lance says, his voice firm and a bit impatient. “Stop ignoring me.”

“I’m not ignoring you,” Keith grits out.

Lance laughs, but the sound is all wrong. It sounds like a perversion of his usual laugh, bitter and quiet where it would usually be boisterous and infectious. “Really?” he asks sarcastically. “Then what _are_ you doing? Because you’re certainly not _talking_ to me. I know a lot of time passed on your end of things since we last saw each other, but are you seriously going to pretend that we barely know each other?”

“What do you _want_ me to do?” Keith growls. “Pretend nothing _has_ changed? Pretend that we can be all buddy-buddy again?”

“Maybe!” Lance exclaims, and Keith can see one of his long arms being flung out in exasperation.

In any other situation, maybe that would’ve been funny or perhaps endearing. All this time, and Lance is still fundamentally Lance. And maybe that’s the main issue here. Lance is still Lance, and Keith is still Keith, and that means that as long as Keith’s heart continues beating for the Cuban, they can’t go back to the way things were. But Keith can’t admit this to Lance, so he bites his tongue.

Lance, however, is not satisfied with Keith’s sullen silence. “I can’t believe you,” he hisses, and Keith can hear him getting up. Kosmo whines quietly, but they both ignore him. “You are a piece of work, Kogane.”

He walks away, and Keith hears the sound of the roof door opening and closing again. He’s left alone with the cold, uncaring night sky and a sad alien dog who still wants pets.

**Author's Note:**

> completely unrelated fix-it fic because - i shit you not - i had a dream about the garbage fire that was s8 of voltron and now i gotta fix that shit. KICK and all that jazz.
> 
> fun fact: i have never watched the entirety of s8, and i never will. also, i have no idea where i'm going with this other than i have another chapter from krolia's pov already written, and imma go from there. all you need to know is that allura does not die in my version of the au. unlike SOME i can respect our queen. there will be more to this, but not tonight cause it's late and i wanna sleep
> 
> kudos/comments/etc. are appreciated! i didn't beta this so it's probs got mistakes. yell at me for them, please!! love y'all and good night :)


End file.
